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Ratigan
Professor Padraic Ratigan is the main antagonist of Disney's 1986 feature film The Great Mouse Detective, voiced by the late Vincent Price. He is the story's version of Professor James Moriarty from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, and serves as the adversary to the Sherlock Holmes counterpart, Basil of Baker Street. He has cited "The Big Ben Caper" and "The Tower Bridge Job" as 2 of his most notorious criminal operations. Personality Ratigan has a variety of henchmen that follow him, including his overweight pet cat, Felicia, Bill the Lizard, a small mouse named Bartholomew, and his right-hand man, a peg-legged bat named Fidget. Personality-wise, Ratigan is very charismatic, calm, and calculating, but can easily be sent into a violent rage at the mention of Basil or by the incompetence of his minions. He has a very dark, malicious sense of humor and an inflated ego. Even though he is one, Ratigan detests, above all else, being refered to as a rat, preferring the description of "a big mouse," and fed Bartholomew to Felicia when Bartholomew calls him "the world's greatest rat" while intoxicated. He can easily be identified as a rat since he has 4 fingers and a thumb on each hand while all the other mice have 3 fingers. Also, the mice in the movie have much smaller, thinner tails than Ratigan, who has a long, fleshy tail. In the Basil of Baker Street book series, Ratigan's first name is revealed to be Padriac, and he is in fact, portrayed as a mouse (in contrast to his depiction in the movie). Appearances The Great Mouse Detective Ratigan makes plans to take over Mousedom by replacing the Queen with a robotic fake built by a toymaker named Hiram Flaversham, whom he has Fidget kidnap. He will then have the real Queen fed to Felicia, ensuring his reign as permanent King of Mousedom. However, Basil and Dr. Dawson foil these plans with help from the toymaker's daughter, Olivia. Unfortunately, Ratigan, with help from Fidget, kidnaps Olivia and threatens to kill her if they attempt to stop his escape. Basil, Dawson, and Flaversham pursue Ratigan above London on hot air balloons, and Basil and Ratigan crash into Big Ben. Inside the clock tower, Basil and Ratigan fight atop the gears of the clock tower, and with help from Olivia, Basil traps Ratigan by throwing his cape in the gears. The 2 then escape, finally sending Ratigan over the edge. Breaking free from the gears, he pursues Basil, destroying his suit in the process and transforming from a very formal, composed rat to a highly savage one. Finally, he extends his long and strong fingernails, poking through his gloves, and begins scratching Basil continously, ripping his clothes and clawing his flesh.Ratigan falls to his death in an epic confrontation with Basil on Big Ben's clock hands, in a scene similar to the Battle of Reichenbach Falls in Doyle's story "The Final Problem." House of Mouse He appears when Timothy Mouse tries to eat a bean. In an episode, he tried to lure Dr. Dawson with cheese on a mousetrap, but Basil stopped Dawson and told him it's a trap, and Ratigans groans "Curses!" Disney Parks Ratigan was once a walkaround character at the Disney parks. Trivia *Ratigan shares a few similarities with Cruella De Vil. They both live in London, smoke cigarette poles, intimidate their henchmen, develop red eyes in the climaxes, and gradually reveal their true personalities; utterly violent and insane. *Ratigan also shares a few traits with Gaston. They both sing songs that praise themselves, threaten to hurt someone if they don't get what they want, fight the protagonists on a high area, and fall to their deaths. *According to a deleted lyric in Hail Ratigan, The World's Greatest Mouse Ever; The Tower Bridge Job involved hurling several innocent mice within the Thames River, and then shooting whoever attempts to come up to the surface. *Vincent Price, the voice of Ratigan, said that doing Ratigan was his favorite role. *The Nostalgia Critic listed Ratigan as Number 7 on his "Top 11 Disney Villians" list and the best 'funny villian'. His female counterpart, The Nostalgia Chick, listed him as Number 6 on her "Top 10 Evil Nostalgia Characters" list. *Ratigan is currently the only Disney villain to have deliberately killed one of his henchmen. He even causes the death of two henchmen, which is an unique case: Bartholomew (swallowed by his pet cat Felicia) and Fidget the Bat (launched by his own hands above the Thames River from a hot air balloon, though it will be revealed later out of the movie he survived his fall). *His lover is Wing. *Ratigan is very similar to the star wars villain jabba the hutt, as they both have great authority and use it to intimidate others they seek revenge on another character have many minions and own a giant pet that devours anyone that upsets them ratigan owns felicia and jabba has a huge rancor monster Gallery Category:Characters Category:Villains Category:Males Category:Mice Category:Animal Villains Category:Singing Characters Category:Disney characters Category:Comedy Villains Category:Rats Category:Geniuses Category:Characters in Disney parks Category:The Great Mouse Detective characters Category:Disney's Greatest Villains characters Category:Kings Category:Anthropomorphic characters Category:Top 30 Disney Villains Category:Comedy Characters Category:House of Mouse characters Category:Characters in the Disney animated features canon Category:Characters who fall to their deaths Category:Deceased characters Category:Animals